


Dirt Nap

by WaltzQueen



Category: Book of Life (2014)
Genre: Sleepwalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 20:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2705072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaltzQueen/pseuds/WaltzQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Manolo tends to sleep walk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dirt Nap

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Off by Literally the president. It's a good read and you can find it here (https://archiveofourown.org/works/2561417). I figured I would put something out there for the good movie and the tiny fandom.
> 
> Marigolds are associated with La Dia De los Muertos  
> Pan de Muerto is bread for the dead to eat.  
> Papel picado are paper cut outs, usually done with skeletons, bird or othersuch things.

Maria wakes again. 

She abandons her blurry dreams of Spain and the voices of the friends she made as a girl for the waking world in San Angel. The left side of the bed is empty and the house is hushed. Maria reaches over to touch Manolo's pillow; it's colder than the grave. She considers going back to sleep, but Maria never was one to let a situation resolve itself. 

Maria levers herself out of bed, slowly but no less sure of her path than any other hour. Maria's light feet carry her to her closet and the dress with in it and out of the room. Carmella, their sweet little girl, lies fast asleep as her mother passes her door. It is good that she slept through Manolo leaving, she needs her rest for tomorrow and it is nothing unusual for Manolo to be gone like this, Maria thinks to herself as she closes the door to the Sanchez house behind her.

The moon in the sky highlights the gently swaying papels picado all across town as Maria goes on her solitary journey. The already embellished cut outs of skeletons and birds are joined by those of bulls and guitars. The marigolds in baskets on balconies and in ajar windows lay still in the warm night air. She had hoped to find Manolo transfixed by the views of flowers, as he sometimes was. She carried on through the streets, past the Posada residence, Past the off-and-on-again-now-permantly-on house where Joaquin lived when he was not earning more medals, and past the bell tower, now fixed and taller than before. No one seems to be awake besides the Mariachi brothers in the bar, laughing about a performance earlier in the week. Maria keeps moving.

Maria steps in to the graveyard with only a slight hesitation. She knows exactly where to go, having walked this path a thousand times before. Thirty steps forward and thirteen to the left are the graves of Carmen and Carlos, Luisa and Luis, and Manolo Sanchez. Thirty five steps forward and nine to the left will be the feet of her husband, Manolo Sanchez, as he sleeps on top of his own grave, yet again.

The first time she had woken to find Manolo gone entirely Maria had panicked and rushed to Joaquin for help, only to find Manolo splayed out as though it were his funeral. His head was cushioned in marigolds and roses and his guitar lay in his lap, next to a half eaten pan de muerto. Maria and Joaquin had only looked at each other and carried him back home as quickly as possible. It would do no one any good to know as the only people who needed to know were the ones moving him quickly into the house in the dead of night. He never seemed to remember anything, only confessing to feeling better than ever and sounding a little surprised by that fact. 

Here and now, Maria stares down at her husband and he slept like the dead on the cold earth of the cemetery ground. Even after all these years she did not know what to make of it at all.


End file.
